Abandoned was the final film
completed by Brittany Murphy prior to her untimely death in December
2009, and it doesn’t constitute much of a legacy.

Released straight to DVD in early 2010, the
film sees Mary Walsh (a decidedly sickly looking Murphy) dropping her
boyfriend Kevin Peterson (Dean Cain) off at hospital for a routine knee
operation. After waiting several hours with no word and engaging in
small talk with a convivial geriatric (Tim Thomerson), she enquires when
she can expect to be reunited with her beau. Mary is somewhat taken
aback to be informed that there is no sign of anyone matching the
description of her boyfriend, and that furthermore no one named Kevin
Peterson has been scheduled for surgery that day, the doctor she
believes was operating has the day off and nobody has even heard of the
nurse who supposedly admitted Kevin to his room. There follows one of
the most improbable, convoluted, absurd and downright infuriating
‘mystery’ plots ever to be spewed onto the small screen.

The only mysteries are how this ludicrous
little film ever got funding, and why Brittany Murphy was allowed to
shoot her final film wearing several pounds of insane, endlessly
distracting clown makeup. I watched this film with my girlfriend and
for the first 20 minutes all we could say was ‘Why are her eyelashes so
clumpy?’ ‘Why did they put several layers of foundation over her
eyebrows?’ ‘Why does her lipstick go so far over the edges of her
lips?’ and the like. And that’s just her makeup. Further worrisome
cosmetic additions include stringy strawlike hair, a waxen visage, a
terrible dye job that a trailer park hooker would turn her nose up
at, several centimetres of dark roots and bags under the eyes that
indicate all was not well chez Murphy.

It’s a shame her appearance is so
distracting, because her performance is more than respectable; Murphy
tries her darndest, in fact, to salvage some measure of levity and
plausibility out of this pile of absolute dross. The first 20 or 30
minutes is genuinely engrossing, and although this soon dissipated amid
the silliness I was still genuinely interested to find out where the
story was going. Ultimately however there are just too many plot holes
(plot craters, actually) and an abundance of unanswered questions:
simply put, the film doesn’t make any sense, and at the end of it you’ll
likely spend several minutes screaming at the screen before retreating
into a cocoon of befuddled disbelief that such tat was allowed to be
pressed to DVD. Also the acting is mostly terrible, the characters so
flimsy they are essentially just walking plot devices and the premise
F**KING ABSURD. Very disappointing, and a paltry way for an actress of
any calibre to end her career.

Audio and Video

The fact the film was shot in HD is
unfortunate given the director’s tendency to show Murphy’s pallid
cartoonish face in close-up on multiple occasions. The 5.1 surround
soundtrack is fine. Probably. I was too distracted to pay any
attention.

Extras

The film has been released in Australia
with a minimum of publicity and a total absence of special features.
There isn’t even a theatrical trailer. If Sony don’t care, how can they
expect the DVD-buying public to?